Orchestra conducted by Gideon Fagan
French military march (Algerian
Suite)
Symphonic poem: Omphale's spinning-wheel
Selection: Samson and Delilah
In 1835, when Saint-Saens was born, Beethoven, whose later works were then considered the last word in modernity, had been dead eight years. When Saint-Saens died, in 1921, Alban Berg had just completed Wozzeck. Thus the French composer lived to see the full cycle of the Romantic movement which connects Berg with Beethoven.
Romain Rolland, the distinguished
French critic and author, Has said that Saint-Saens ' is tormented by no passions and nothing perturbs the lucidity of his mind. At times his music seems to carry us back to Mendelssohn, to Spontini, to the school of Gluck. He brings into the midst of our present restlessness something of the sweetness and clarity of past periods, something that seems like fragments of a vanished world '.